Hot Cross Buns, and Iced Buns: Almost No-Knead Bread (Wheat Free with Dairy Free Option)

Today is Good Friday, and as promised I present to you Hot Cross Buns and Easter Iced Buns!

These are brought to you because hot cross buns are traditional this weekend, of course, but also in response to a conversation that I find myself having fairly frequently with other hobby bakers:

"How do you make bread without kneading?"

You don't have to knead bread if it proves overnight in the fridge

"Hmm, I don't have that amount of time. How to I make bread in a few hours?"

Well, if you want it today you'll have to knead it really thoroughly

"Okay, so how do you make bread that doesn't need kneading that I can have in a few hours?"

These people who obviously want to have their bread and eat it too.

If there is one thing that I have come to learn about yeast-risen bread, it's that to make a nice bread you have to spend time, or spend effort. There is no such thing as a no-effort bread that's ready immediately, unless you're making soda bread. As such, the less effort you want to put in the more time you'll have to spend, and the less time you want to spend the more effort you'll have to put in.

Kneading and overnight proving are both used to develop gluten in bread dough: you can develop the gluten by hand through kneading vigorously, or you can let the yeast develop the gluten overnight slowly and steadily. Here are the pros and cons of each:

• Kneading is the faster solution as you can knead a dough well by hand and have bread ready for its first rise in half an hour. Sometimes, however, when you encounter a particularly sticky dough, people get frustrated and the temptation is to add a load more flour to make the kneading easier, thus making the dough dry and tough. Also, some very sticky doughs need a good 20 to 25 minutes of continuous kneading, which can be exhausting.
• When you prove dough overnight, the kneading step and the first rise step are combined in a zero effort solution, but if you want bread today you have to start yesterday, which means you really have to plan your bread needs in advance. Also, overnight rises can make a bread that is overproofed, which leads to dense, sour loaves that stale too quickly.

So what's a baker to do? Well, I have come to inform you that there is a halfway house: bread that takes a day to make and requires only moderate kneading effort, harnessing the gluten developing powers of both the yeast and your hands in turns.

In this recipe, I use this bread dough to make a delicious and pretty Easter treat: a tray of hot cross buns, and plain buns iced with little portraits of Bibbit's springtime friends.

Follow the recipe below, and watch the video for full instructions!

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DIFFICULTY

The steps are simple, but time consuming

TIME

Roughly 3½ to 4 hours

RECIPE RATING

Intermediate

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INGREDIMENTS

Makes 16 buns

1 pound (455 grammes) white spelt flour
2 ounces (55 grammes) unsalted butter, or margarine
1 rounded teaspoon (7 grammes) salt
2 ounces (55 grammes) caster sugar
2 medium (US large) eggs
6 fluid ounces (170 millilitres) milk at body temperature, or milk alternative
Up to 4 extra tablespoons (60 millilitres) milk or milk alternative, to adjust the texture
1 quarter-ounce (7 gramme) packet of dried active yeast

For spiced dough

1 or 2 tablespoons (7 to 15 grammes) ground mixed spice, to taste, moistened with half as much warm water
3 ounces (85 grammes) mixed dried fruit of your choice
Optional: 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) orange zest
Optional: 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) lemon zest

To make the crosses

½ ounce (15 grammes) white spelt flour
¾ teaspoon (3 grammes) butter
Water, to mix

To decorate

Runny honey, for brushing
Fresh orange juice, for brushing
12 ounces (340 grammes) icing sugar, sieved
2 ounces (55 grammes) unsalted butter, or margarine
Hot water, to mix
Food colouring: pink, yellow, orange, black, blue, and green.

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FREE FROM

Wheat, yeast, nuts

CONTAINS

Eggs, spelt, dairy (dairy free option in italics), refined sugar

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POINTS TO REMEMBER

• Try not to add too much milk, otherwise it will need more rises to develop the gluten. At the absolute most, add a total of 8 fluid ounces (225 millilitres) of milk, which is half as much flour.
• The first rise will take roughly an hour and a quarter, but it could take up to an hour and a half.
• Likewise, the second rise should only be 45 minutes, but could take up to an hour.
• One thing that I forget to mention in the video is that the raw rolls need to be flattened a little bit so they don't rise in a ball shape. 
• The third and final rise should to 30 to 40 minutes: the rolls should expand by about two thirds, not double. If you poke them on the side and they spring back, they need more rising: your finger should leave a little dent in the side, but not collapse the roll.
• Bake for 10 to 12 minutes at 200°C (400°F).

THIS TIME IN 2017: Recipe Revision: Baked Cheesecake, but a large one this time! (Gluten Free Option)

THIS TIME IN 2015: Experiment: Yeast and Wheat Free Hot Cross Buns

THIS TIME IN 2013: Coffee Sponge Slice with Raspberry Fondant Icing (Wheat Free)

There were no blogs on this day in 2014 for 2016

Question: "How much chocolate and cornflakes should I use to make Cornflake Cakes?", with Video

The humble cornflake cake: a staple of every Irish household all throughout the year.

These cakes are very simple to make, and are often done as a fun baking project for small children because they only need two ingredients: chocolate, and cornflakes (or sometimes rice crispies). Mix 'em up, pop 'em in cases, refrigerate until set, and Bob's your uncle!

However, the question I sometimes get is how much of each should I use? The simple answer is melt an amount of chocolate and then add cornflakes until it's "right", which is how pretty much every Irish Mammy has done it since the dawn of time. But, if you want to know exactly how much of each to use, so that you know if you have the right amount of ingredients before you get started, here is your answer:

It's a very simple weight ratio of 2 parts chocolate to 1 part cornflakes.

That's it: melt two parts in weight of chocolate, and mix in one part in weight of cornflakes until thoroughly coated. It couldn't be simpler. If you want a little extra richness, you can replace a sixth of the chocolate with unsalted butter, but this is purely optional.

To make a dozen small cakes, you will need half a pound, or 8 ounces (225 grammes) chocolate and quarter of a pound, or 4 ounces (115 grammes) cornflakes. Decorate however you like with mini eggs, or fluffy chick toys. You can of course make fewer huge cornflake cakes if you like, or multiply the amounts to make loads of cakes; it's completely up to you.

Check out the video below, where I demonstrate how to make them.

Birthday Cake to Me! Coconut Lime Mini Cake (Wheat Free)

Here is the written recipe for the recipe featured in the first episode of "Sweetie Pie Bakes Stuff" 2018 series.

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DIFFICULTY

Each step is simple, but there are a lot of steps

TIME

About 2 hours

RECIPE RATING

Intermediate

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INGREDIMENTS

For one 10 centimetre round cake

30 grammes (1 ounce) unsalted butter, soft
30 grammes (1 ounce) sunflower oil
85 grammes (3 ounces) caster sugar
1 medium egg
85 grammes (3 ounces) plain white spelt flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
30 grammes (1 ounces) desiccated coconut
60 millilitres (2 fluid ounces) light coconut milk

For the icing
115 grammes (4 ounces) white chocolate, in small pieces
40 grammes (1⅓ ounces) unsalted butter
55 grammes (2 ounces) caster sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lime, mixed with water to measure 60 millilitres (2 fluid ounces)

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FREE FROM

Wheat, yeast, nuts

CONTAINS

Eggs, spelt, dairy (dairy free option in italics), refined sugar

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Happy 5th Anniversary, Sweetie Pie! Half a Decade of Blogging

Happy 5th birthday to Sweetie Pie Bakes Stuff!!

Wow: half a decade of blogging. If this blog were a person, it'd be starting school this September. That's a long-o time to do anything on the internet!

A lot of things have happened in 5 years:

• I've moved house five times around 3 counties
• I finished a diploma, joined the world of work, and then returned to college and earned a masters degree 
• I represented my city to the Council of Europe
• I was in a band that released an EP, and one of our singles was played in the USA
• I was on national radio and television several times performing original music and church music
• Boyfriends came and went before I began dating my best friend to whom I'm now engaged
• I went from being a complete Taekwondo beginner to being nearly a black belt (pray for me: my black belt mock exam is in five weeks...)
• And last but not least: this blog grew to have over 300 individual posts, nearly 31,000 views, and over 250 likers on my Facebook page!

The difference between 22 year old me and 27 year old me is astonishing (but strangely enough quite a lot of that happened in the past 18 months), and difference between no-years old and 5 year old blog is huge as well!

Since my last anniversary, I wrote a butt tonne of blog posts: 2017 was the most prolific year of this blog since it was begun, having 50% more posts than any of the previous years. I had decided that I was going to make up for the fact that the previous year of 2016 was the least prolific year of the blog, have less than half the amount of posts of the previous year of 2015.

In 2017 I had more time to dedicate to baking because I wasn't doing any Taekwondo training throughout my masters. Sure, the masters was a lot of work, but for the first time in 4 years I had evenings completely to myself with no other demands on my time, and completely free weekends. This gave me so much more time to bake, and because my fiancé worked in a large company with lots of staff, I had people to give away my culinary experiments to so I could produce more than normal.

It was one of my most experimental and adventurous years in the kitchen, so much so that even by the time I took my (accidentally) 3 month break before Christmas — and had an unexpected break through August — I had written over 80 posts.

So: here are the Top 5 Posts of 2017:

1. Red Velvet Cake, with Traditional Cooked Milk Frosting (Wheat Free, with Dairy Free Option)
2. Happeee Birthdaeee, Mumeee!: Lemon Meringue Layer Cake
3. Something Savoury: Bacon and Onion Quiche (Wheat Free)
4. Simple Danish Pastries (Wheat- and Yeast Free)
5. I've Finally Got It! French Macarons, with the help of Kawaii Sweet World (Gluten- and Dairy Free)

And, here are the 10 Runners-Up:

1. Ice-Cream Month: Arctic Roll, a Retro Classic? (Wheat Free, with Dairy-Free Option)
2. Yeast Risen Cinnamon Rolls (Wheat Free)
3. Recipe Revision: Baked Cheesecake, but a large one this time! (Gluten Free Option)
4. Hot Cross Bunnies: a Cutesy Twist on a Traditional Favourite (Wheat Free)
5. Something Different: Doboš Torte (Wheat Free, with Dairy Free Option)
6. Easter Celebration: a Modern-Style Simnel Cake (Wheat Free)
7. Crumpets (Wheat- and Egg Free)
8. Southern States Caramel Cake
9. No Crack Swiss Roll Recipe (Wheat Free, with Dairy Free Option)
10. Ice-Cream Month: Chocolate and Pistachio Brownie Sundae

In retrospect, 2017 was a good year for ice-cream...

So, What's Happening in 2018?

2018 will be another jam-packed year for Sweetie Pie Bakes stuff: I have so much planned! I will admit, however, that this January and February were a difficult time for me as I was suffering from a bout of depression caused by my unemployment and I considered giving up the blog entirely for a few weeks. I was just lacking so much in motivation, and couldn't see how much great work that I'd done, that I nearly threw in the towel because "no-one cares about my blog". I now understand that that isn't true: a lot of people care and read my posts and enjoy my photos.

So, to finish this uber-long post, I want to thank every single person who has liked, read, shared, commented, eaten, and otherwise supported my blog over the past 5 years. It's been a absolute blast!

Here's to the future! xoxo

PREMIER PRO HAS DIED 😭: "Sweetie Pie Bakes Stuff" Series Postponed to MONDAY 19TH

Oh no. Oh very dear.

During my editing of today's video, my editing software decided to not work. As such, the premier of Sweetie Pie Bakes Stuff will happen on Monday the 19th instead of today.

I apologise deeply for this technical difficulty postponing the release of today's video. Join Sweetie on Monday instead for some cakey bakey goodness!

See the full sorry tale here:

Apologies for Radio Silence.... I Got Engaged! ^_^ x

Yes, I've been gone a while. Christmas was followed by my brother's wedding, followed by his birthday, followed by my birthday, followed by MY OWN ENGAGEMENT!! (excited squeaking)

Yes, my lovely companion and I got engaged on my birthday. It was wonderfully romantic, and since then it's been wedding planning followed by more wedding planning.

Then, I had two black belt preparation seminars, and several taekwondo squad training sessions. I also had a few job interviews, and have been on the hunt for gainful employment. Among all that, I did a month of videos on my Life with Lynch Pin channel.

So, it's been busy busy busy!

I have been baking in the background: testing new recipes, going back to basics to work on my baking fundamentals and the foundation recipes for everything I do, reviewing how I make simple sponge cakes, biscuits, pastry, and bread.

As this is the first Monday of March, I thought it'd be a good time to resume my blogging after a whole two months of silence. I think this whole "taking a long break at the start of the year" thing is becoming a trend.... I gotta stop that!

A big thank you to all my readers who've been patiently awaiting my return and following my activity on Facebook. You support is what keeps my blogging, baking, and ranting!

Sweetie xxx

EXCITING NEWS!! New Series Starts March 16th!

Exciting news afoot!!

Sweetie and Bibbit will be starring in their own shiny cookery series from March 16th!!